The insertions serve to remind the reader that though fiction, the events described in the novel actually happened, to people like Billy Pilgrim/Kurt Vonnegut. However, Vonnegut also uses several techniques not found in the works of noted memoir writers such as Tobias Wolff and Anne Frank. For example, Vonnegut also employs a third-person point-of-view, where an omniscient narrator goes into the minds of several other characters. Thus, in addition to Billy Pilgrim, the reader also gains insight into the motivations and thoughts of other characters as well. Vonnegut also employs a time-shifting progression that takes the reader back and forth from the present (1968), to the meat locker in World War II to Billy's birth (1920) and even to his , though Slaughterhouse-Five chronicles real events, it is also a work of autobiographical fiction. Writing a novel rather than a memoir allowed Vonnegut to employ important fiction techniques - such as the omniscient narrator, a shifting timeline and even fantastic events such as a trip to another planet. Through these techniques, Vonnegut is able to construct the bombing of Dresden in great detail. The result is a novel of surprising power, one that conveys to the reader the unimaginable and ultimately useless nature of war.
There is nothing laudable about young people leaving their homes in order to fight for their countries. Moreover, these young people are very different from how they are usually presented. They are frightened, horrified, and it would be absurd to call them war heroes, regardless of the role that they played in the war. Vonnegut's intention is to condemn war, and, thus, instead of providing his readers with a traditional
I enjoyed Vonnegut's commentary on the strangeness of humankind's foibles and I was not shocked by some of his matter-of-fact depictions. Indeed, when Vonnegut draws on his own real-life experiences, the novel takes on an air of authenticity. This authenticity coupled with Vonnegut's wry, black humor makes the novel seem caustic and ironic, but at heart it is neither -- it is simply a record of things both real and
This author used them to see how Kurt Vonnegut is post-modernist. Barry begins in number one by asking how authors discover postmodernist themes and attitudes. In the observation, postmodernists foreground fiction which might be said to exemplify the notion of the 'disappearance of the real' in which shifting postmodern identities are seen. For number three, there is use of parody, pastiche and allusion. For number four, there is foreground irony
The best evidence for this suffusion in the author's own life is in the final chapter, when the main character/author returns in full force. Traveling peacefully and happily in a plane above Berlin, during a moment he considers "one of the nicest ones in recent times" (Vonnegut, p. 211), removed in time and space from Dresden, Vonnegut "imagined dropping bombs on those lights, those villages and cities and towns," (Vonnegut,
The message is further developed when he refuses to listen to her explanation about why she would work as an agent of suicide, explaining that "a woman's not a woman till the pills wear off." (41). Through these twists and turns, we can see Vonnegut's exploration of sex, sexiness, and age. He utilizes humor and irony to highlight social contradictions and, perhaps, to point out timeless truths about what
Through his experiences and adventures, Billy becomes a symbol more than a mere character. He obviously has more insight into how things truly are, than the rest of the characters in the book. Not accidentally, Billy becomes unstuck in time precisely during the Second World War, hinting thus at the need to escape the imminence of death as a constantly pending menace: "The Tralfamadorians didn't have anything to do
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